January 3, 2012

Today, my boyfriend Dana and I are driving to Duluth (Minnesota) to pick up Dana’s father’s camper, which he is loaning to me for a year. This is all part of an experiment to follow my excitement, recommended by Bashar in videos I’ve watched on the internet. Since purchasing this parcel in Milltown, WI, I’ve wanted to spend a broader chunk of time there than the occasional overnight Dana and I have managed to fit into busy and divergent schedules. This summer will be my first of many opportunities.

A similar philosophy, stated as follow your bliss, was part of Joseph Campbell’s legacy. He saw this not merely as a mantra, but as a helpful guide to the individual along the hero’s journey that each of us walks through life.

Most of the philosophies I’ve encountered based on this idea of pursuing things that drive up life’s excitement meter recommend making this the most important priority in life. Not that excitement is focused on at the expense of everything else, but that you focus on it as much as possible, or as much as your current responsibilities allow.

I find myself, instead of balking at the idea of such risk-taking behavior, excited by the very idea of it. Suddenly, the list of things I’d like to pursue becomes ample, filling a space too in my mind too large even for my own comfort. The seemingly unrelated paths to pursue range from introducing DIY video production in working with my clients, to building a grand-scale permaculture to my 30-acre parcel (then living off the grid and eating mostly what I grow); from developing a website helping other clinicians to “go digital” with record-keeping, to a site that stretches the DIY paradigm more broadly so that it would include teaching clinicians to help their clients provide much more of their own expertise on the healing journey.

Looking at it now, there is a thread of DIY-ness woven throughout. Makes me feel a little better to assign a theme to these far-flung imaginings. For now, I’m attempting to talk soothingly to that little voice in me who insists that the kookiness factor in all of this has gone through the roof, and to do what I can with my limited free time. I’ll spend free days this summer mostly in the little motor home on my land parcel, learn more about The Hero’s Journey, and add some of the self-help tools I currently use with clients to this blog and/or my web site for others to use. I’ll also present a film I made about my own Brain Injury recovery at a second conference for the benefit of those working with TBI patients.

January 1, 2012

I’m not a writer. I’ve never written, except for writing case notes for my work as a psychotherapist. Yet I want to test out a couple of ideas. One is Gretchen Rubin’s assertion (in The Happiness Project) that “Happiness doesn’t always make you feel happy.” You can gain happiness over the long haul by doing things that, at first, make you feel the opposite of happy–uncomfortable, crabby, or downright miserable. I’m one of those people who wishes I could get my ideas across by osmosis. Even when I’m face to face with someone, I find the task of forming words and sentences using my right-brained wiring an arduous task.

The second idea is the call to action inherent in any desire. Current manifestation techniques include two parts: imagining clearly and unhesitatingly that what you want to create is already present in a tangible way; and acting as if this newly imagined reality is your current actual reality. My desire (See #6, #7, #10, #12, and #14 of my 2012 affirmation list–to be surrounded by others who share, value, and support who I am as a person, is creating this call. The call to write a blog isn’t necessarily comfortable, but to make it so I have to write as if I’m comfortable with it.

And you know what? Having just completed my first two paragraphs, I have to say–this isn’t nearly as arduous as I imagined it would be. It’s actually kind of fun!